The Energy Beneath It All

Everything this month has been about energy. But there are so many more pieces than just what comes to mind first: diet, sleep, supplements, habits. Energy is intangible, but it can be felt, absorbed, and released, almost like oxygen.

We don’t have a scientific process to quantify or observe it, yet we as humans do so naturally. Trusting your gut. Getting a bad feeling. Feeling a room before you understand why.

Whether it’s good or bad, simple or complex, I feel energy throughout my entire day from people, places, and objects.

This may seem like a curveball, but hear me out... people who use heroin can overdose in places where they usually do not get high. Let’s say they have a tolerance and normally use their regular dose at their home, a place they are comfortable in, every day. If they take that same dose somewhere unfamiliar or uncomfortable, it can, and has, caused an overdose. The body reacts differently simply because the environment changed.

The body recognizes safety, familiarity, and energy before the mind does. This phenomenon is referred to as set and setting by the psychedelic community, but I believe it applies here too. The point remains: take heed of your set and setting before indulging.

All of this is just evidence that energy is constantly interacting with us, whether or not we pay attention is a different story. If something feels wrong and you can’t explain it, trust yourself. Choose yourself.

That’s the energy beneath it all, the part you feel before you think.

The Inputs You Don’t Notice

Once you start paying attention, you realize energy isn’t just about what you eat or how you sleep. It all revolves around what you consume.

People say “you are what you eat,” but nobody says “you are what you absorb.”

Information, content, atmosphere, noise.

If I spend my morning scrolling Instagram reels, I can feel the shift almost instantly. My thoughts race. My focus shits the bed. My energy becomes short-form. Quick, shallow, overstimulated.

And it's interesting how fast comparison sneaks in. Comparison is the thief of joy, but with short-form content you don’t even notice you’re comparing, your mood just shifts. Your energy tightens. Your baseline lowers a little without your permission.

But when I spend the same hour reading, practicing a skill, or just taking in something that actually pushes me, everything changes. My thoughts slow down. My focus deepens. My energy becomes long-form. Sustainable, intentional, grounded.

Your “content diet” shapes how your brain expects to move through the world.

Fast in → fast out.

Depth in → depth out.

It’s energy hygiene just as much as supplements, sleep, or food.

People, Places, and Objects

Content diet is an important factor, but energy isn’t only about screens. It’s about the environments we’re in and the people we’re around.

Some people recharge me just by existing near me. Some drain me even in silence.

Some rooms feel light. Some rooms make my body tense the second I walk in.

It’s subtle, but it’s there if you look close enough.

Even my phone, that damn thing holds more energetic weight than we realize. Notifications, messages, expectations, invisible tension. Sometimes I don’t even want it in my pocket. I don’t want that pull on me, even when it’s on silent. Speaking of, my phone has been on Do Not Disturb mode for the past four years, and it’s one of the best choices I’ve made. If something is actually important, I get a call. Anything else?I’ll see it when I see it.

You don’t get automatic access to my presence or my energy just because everyone else is hyper-reachable. That’s not my standard.

Protecting your energy is responsible. Your body picks up signals faster than your mind can make sense of them.

Your Internal Compass Is Always Talking

Often, energetic shifts are quiet, a clench in your chest, a shift in mood, a heaviness that wasn’t there ten minutes ago. But when you ignore those signals, the cost always shows up somewhere else.

I used to override those moments. Push through environments I didn’t like. Force myself into conversations or dynamics that didn’t fit. Then I’d wonder why I felt drained for the rest of the day.

Now I treat those sensations as data. My energy always tells the truth first, I just have to listen.

Zooming Out: The Quiet Foundation

When you put all this together, the food you eat, the content you consume, the people you allow in, the places you spend time, the objects you keep near your body, you start to realize something:

Energy isn’t one thing. It’s everything.

It’s the sum of the obvious and the invisible. The nutrition and the intuition. The physical layers you can measure and the internal layers you can only feel.

This whole month has been about building a foundation. Supplements. Food. Habits. But this last layer is the one that holds it all together: Trusting your own sense of what feels right. Not pushing past your body’s signals. Not abandoning yourself for convenience, noise, or expectation.

That’s the real foundation of energy. The part you can’t see, but always feel.

I hope this month brought some clarity if you’ve been feeling drained. Question everything, trust your intuition, and never settle with your energy, it’s all you’ve got at the end of the day. And remember... always choose yourself, even when it’s felt more than it’s obvious 🤍